urgent t60 login freeze hang lockup issue

[thecavemankevin]

Hi everyone, i've been digging through this site and several others for the past day or so trying to find a fix. I have 80+ T60 8741 49u thinkpads all suffering from the same thing. They will boot into xp sp3 fine but hang/lockup/freeze about 5-8 seconds after getting to the log in screen. They do NOT freeze when they are plugged into AC power. Or i can go on battery power and have a live patch cable plugged into the NIC and that will also allow the laptop to function normally. It also will not lock up if on battery and no patch cable if i go into safe mode (even safe with network support). So this seems to indicate a software/driver conflict.

I've tried:
updating bios from 1.07 to 1.14 (latest)
playing with power management options in bios
updating virtually all drivers including power management drivers, nic and wireless nic, touchpad (various versions) graphics drivers (omega drivers too). I've also tried the standard battery and the extended battery with no difference.

These were all imaged with Ghost using UIU (universal image utility) and built on a fresh copy of xp with non of the added lenovo software. However, i've since added lenovo's power management and tried tweaking it. I tried running lenovo update and installing recommended software but it would get to 15% complete during the scan agent updates and error out with "an error occurred while downloading packages." I of course have admin rights (logged in as admin) and a good network connection.

I need help ASAP as these are to be deployed in about 4 days for the start of the school year at UofRichmond.

Thank you

[jdhurst]

With 80 machines going wrong, it is almost certainly not a hardware issue or a machine design issue.

Have you thought about installing the preload; only uninstalling the particular things you want different (probably security suite, and fluffy applications like Picassa) but leaving all the Lenovo supplied driver and managment software? Do you have a non-emotional reason for not using the preload? I find any IBM or Lenovo laptop preload from T23 forward works pretty well and is certainly reliable.
... JDH

[thecavemankevin]

not having anything other than core items is part of our policy. this includes fluffy manufacturer things

i'm fairly certain that it is a driver/power management issue

[jdhurst]

I only have one T60 at a client. It runs XP Pro and is faultessly reliable. Any of the currently supplied Lenovo software offerings run quite well in XP.

Consider taking one machine, setting it back to Preload, open Add Remove Programs, and only uninstall those things you don't need and see if it still hangs. I suspect your unique build much more than the basic Lenovo drivers (audio, video, networks, power, BIOS, EC, chipset, monitor program, hotkey, ultranav/trackpoint, and stuuf like that). ... JDH

[Harryc]

I'd go the msconfig route. Run it from a command prompt and do selective boots unchecking startup drivers in batches. Isolate it down to one driver that way. It might take several reboots but you will find a driver if that is the problem. Run it from safe mode if you have to.

[mitasol]

How long have they been on SP3? I had an issue with SP3 on some Dell desktops, seems the USB drivers were causing constant BSOD's - replacing them with SP2 versions sovled the problem. Check for power management drivers perhaps?

[thecavemankevin]

Harry, i started working on that and had to give up. I'm going to rebuild from a good base image with no issues.

thanks anyways guys

[jdhurst]

Since you are going to rebuild, you may wish to ensure your base image contains all the required drivers (there is more than one power driver and numerous drivers we don't think about in daily use).
... JDH